Macron Describes Constructive Trump Talks on Red Sea and Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that his talks with U.S. President Donald Trump on the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine were “highly constructive.”

Macron spoke with Trump after arriving in New York ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“We had a very good discussion. It was very constructive,” he told reporters after the meeting.

Macron said there was a “willingness to reopen (the Strait of) Hormuz,” a vital shipping route for global oil and gas supplies that has been blockaded by Iran during the war in the Middle East.

“Several solutions were discussed … that could make it possible, without a comprehensive deal, to find ways and means of allowing more container ships and tankers to pass,” Macron said without providing further details.

“The other issue we discussed was the situation in the Red Sea … It is important for global prices,” he said.

The Red Sea has become a crucial oil shipping route as the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, while operations there have been complicated by attacks from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement.

On Russia and Ukraine, Macron said he urged Trump to support providing defensive weapons systems to Kyiv.

Macron and Trump discussed “the need to help our Ukrainian friends faster and more strongly in terms of (missile) interceptors, because that is … a defensive measure,” the French president said.

Macron said in a post on X that they also discussed “the prospect of an energy truce and a moratorium in the Black Sea.”

He told reporters that he would also raise the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“It is clear that today we need to help Ukraine’s energy system,” he said.

Macron met Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Monday.

Before the high-stakes meeting with Trump, a French official said Macron was prepared to speak with the U.S. president with “total candor.”

Macron said Trump was “very amenable and we were able to go into detail on these two conflicts, which are obviously important for peace in the world and for our security.”

Macron traveled to New York from Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a small French territory off Canada’s Atlantic coast, where he met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Carney has been engaged in a public dispute with Trump following failed efforts by the United States and Canada to reach a trade agreement, which led to retaliatory tariffs between the two countries.

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